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GovTech funding and the path to $100MM ARR.

One potential mark of startup success is funding—namely, progressively-larger rounds of funding. Government Technology Magazinedug into the funding history for companies on their GovTech Top 100 list to find out just how much funding these companies were commanding in each round, along with the increase in capital from round to round. (GovTech funding may be gaining momentum, too. Govtech Fund recently invested in seven more companies, more than doubling their portfolio.)

Of course, healthy revenue is the other big marker of success. Nick Bowden is back with a teardown of the path to $100MM ARR. Aside from the usual suspects (access to cash and market size), he discusses how the founders’ competencies, the product’s value-add, and the team’s makeup can all affect adoption and, ultimately, the company’s bottom line.

What the heck is a blockchain?!

The a16z podcast takes Capitol Hill to chat with Representatives Jared Polis (D-Colorado) and David Schweikert (R-Arizona) about possible applications for blockchain technologies, way beyond cryptocurrencies. The 20-minute episode will leave you with plenty of cocktail party worthy soundbites about everything from information privacy to more effective foreign aid.

Invasion of the chatbots. (Coming to a city near you.)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services just added a chatbot to their support team. The bot, named Emma, should be able to answer most visitors’ questions, but if she gets stumped, she’ll switch you over to a live representative. In addition to streamlining customer support, the bot also knows how to handle personally identifiable information (PII) with kid-gloves; chat logs are purged after the session ends, or, if you’re transferred to a representative, the bot will scrub PII from the conversation before handing everything over.